Low carb diet explained – What is low carb diet?

Low carb diets as you might have read or heard about in the past have a low amount of carbohydrates, as found in starchy vegetables, fruits, and grains, and focuses more on foods high in fat and protein. There are countless low carb diets, with varying restrictions on the amounts and types of carbs you can consume.

The purpose of low-carb diets

Generally, the importance of a low carb diet is to lose weight. Apart from the fact that low carb diets generally helps to lose weight, it also helps to mitigate risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Reasons why you might want to consider a low-carb diet

There are specific reasons why you may want to opt for a low carb diet, some of them include;

To lose weight

To change your general feeding habit

To enjoy the amounts and types of foods known to low carb diets.

However, it’s important that you consult a medical practitioner before opting for low-carb diets, especially if you’re suffering from certain health conditions like heart disease or diabetes.

More details on low-carb diets

Just as the name implies, a low-carb diet drastically restricts the amount and type of carbs eaten. One major macronutrient with a high amount of calorie found in beverages and Manu other foods is carbohydrate.

Carbs can either be complex or simple, and they can be further classified as simple natural(fructose in fruit and Lactose in milk), simple refined(table sugar), complex natural(beans or whole grains), and complex refined(white flour).

Refined carbs are also added by food scientists and manufacturers to processed foods in the form of white flour or sugar. Examples of foods or diets containing refined carbs are pasta, candy, drinks, sugar-sweetened sodas, cookies and white bread.

The human body makes use of carbs for all metabolic processes (the body’s main fuel source). Starches, also known as complex carbs are broken down during digestion into simple sugars. After it’s been broken down, they get converted to glucose (blood sugar) after absorption into the bloodstream. Generally, complex carbs, although in its most natural form digests slowly with less impact on blood sugar.

The continuous rise in the body’s blood sugar will keep making the body release insulin. Here’s where low carb diets come in; decreasing carb diets will decrease the levels of insulin, and in turn make the body burn stored fat to be used up as energy, and in the end, weight is lost.